The present invention relates in general to wireless communication networks and particularly to service levels within the communication networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to measuring and providing specific levels of quality of communication within a wireless network.
With the exception of Asynchronous Transfer Mode wireless communication, there is no quality of service standards in the wireless communication industry. Quality of Service (QoS) is derived from requirements by communications applications and generally has very specific guidelines in wireline and Asynchronous Transfer Mode network systems. Traditionally, applications that require a certain level of service are contracted for by a customer with a provider. The requirements are set out with pre-defined values capable of being measured and provided by the provider. Typically, the requirements relate to availability of bandwidth, delay, access, priority, exclusivity, etc. QoS architectures provide mechanisms and procedures to measure and provide specific QoS services.
QoS is relatively easy to define in digital circuits and QoS with respect to ATM standards are defined Class of Service 1, 2, 3, and 4. Class 1 is equivalent to a digital private line; Class 2 supports audio conferencing, multimedia and video; Class 3 supports frame relay and Class 4 supports connectionless data protocols.
Acronyms and abbreviations frequently used throughout this disclosure are defined and described below.
xe2x80x9cBSxe2x80x9d Base Station
xe2x80x9cBTSxe2x80x9d Base Transceiver Station
xe2x80x9cCDMAxe2x80x9d Code Division Multiple Access
xe2x80x9cdatagramxe2x80x9d self contained entity of data with no reliance on the source or destination computer for routing information
xe2x80x9cEnd-to-End delayxe2x80x9d is the delay experienced by service traffic
xe2x80x9cIPxe2x80x9d Internet Protocol
xe2x80x9cLACxe2x80x9d Link Access Controlxe2x80x94utilizes a protocol for data link-level transmission control; the upper sub-layer of IEEE Layer 2 (OSI) protocol that complements the MAC protocol
xe2x80x9cMACxe2x80x9d Medium Access Controlxe2x80x94lower sub-layer of IEEE Layer 2 (OSI) protocol that supports topology-dependent functions and uses the services of the physical layer to provide services to LAC
xe2x80x9cMSxe2x80x9d Mobile Station
xe2x80x9cPPPxe2x80x9d Point-to-Point Protocol
xe2x80x9cQoSxe2x80x9d Quality of Servicexe2x80x94a set of requirements and related service performance that determines a specified degree of performance by an application utilized by a subscriber
xe2x80x9cRTPxe2x80x9d Real Time Protocolxe2x80x94supports transport of real-time data such as voice and video over packet switched networks
xe2x80x9cRLPxe2x80x9d Radio Link Protocol
xe2x80x9csrxe2x80x9d Service Reference
xe2x80x9cTCPxe2x80x9d Transmission Control Protocol
xe2x80x9cThroughputxe2x80x9d is the amount of bandwidth available to an application usually involving error rate, buffer capacity, processing
UDP User Datagram Protocolxe2x80x94normally bundled with IP, provides datagram mode of communication for packet delivery.
QoS in the wireline world is provided on the Internet (a packet based system) utilizing two approaches: qualitative and quantitative. The Qualitative approach is based on differentiated services (Diff-Serv) which is a reservationless model. Diff-Serv with up to 64 per Hop Behaviors (PHB) may be defined by the Type of Service/Diff-Serv (ToS/DS) byte in an IP header into a small number of service types. Priority mechanisms are utilized to provide QoS to packet traffic.
Integrated Services (Int-Serv) provides end to end QoS with by reserving resources for data traffic. RSVP signaling is a protocol that reserves the resources so as to provide the required QoS. Int-Serv is independent of the actual mechanism used to provide the reservations, but Int-Serv specifies generically traffic and path characteristics for a transmission.
A wireless interface standard based on CDMA technology, CDMA2000, is a name that identifies the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) standard for third generation features and services for cellular operators. The interface supports second generation interfaces and includes support for multiple channel sizes, circuit and packet data rates up to 2 Mbps, advanced multimedia capabilities, voice services, vocoders and voice over IP.
PPP is the protocol utilized in transporting data packets across the CDMA network. PPP supports Van-Jacobsen (V-J) header compression which is a technique used to shrink 40 byte headers of TCP packets to as little as two to four bytes. A PPP frame is capable of containing packets from other protocols including IP, by adding a protocol field to the frame definition that identifies the type of data packet being carried by the frame.
One approach for supporting CDMA2000 is to maintain a single class of LAC/MAC that provides procedures for handling various QoS requirements. In this approach, with only one set of mechanisms to provide the bandwidth, availability, etc., QoS flexibility is limited. Efficiency is also affected with the need to switch between resource management systems when different QoS levels are required. A user can run multiple TCP/IP applications from a mobile host through one PPP session such as File Transfer, email or World Wide Web browsing. Some TCP/IP applications may have more demanding QoS requirements than others, e.g., response time for WWW browsing should be less than e-mail or FTP. There is a need to differentiate between these TCP/IP applications at the link layer so that a Packet handler may priority-schedule them to the RLP queues or allocate different LAC/MAC physical layer instance (QoS plane).
A user may run multiple IP-based applications such as file transfer, email, WWW browsing or Voice over IP session over one PPP session from a wireless mobile host. Some applications, such as VoIP, may have more stringent QoS requirements than others (such as email) because the response time is more critical. From a wireless resource usage perspective, there is a need to differentiate between these IP applications at the link layer so the packet handler (PH) can schedule, as to priority, to RLP queues or allocate a different LAC/MAC physical layer instance (QoS plane). This classification, based only on DS/ToS byte alone may not be adequate. The application may not be able to mark the DS/ToS byte; applications may mark email and HTTP packets with the same codepoint (DS byte) or ToS byte information and Diff-Serv may not be deployed when CDMA2000 Phase 1 is implemented.
It would be desirable to provide a method and system that would allow a mobile user to run multiple applications over a single PPP session. It would also be desirable to identify a IP application packet encapsulated within a PPP packet and detect IP application changes during a PPP session. It would further be desirable to require no dependence on IP QoS information.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a method and system for identifying a IP application packet that is encapsulated by a PPP packet.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that will detect IP application changes during a PPP session.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that will allow multiple applications to operate over a single PPP session.
The foregoing objects are achieved as is now described. A classification application utilizing a table of connection numbers and associated IP application IDs is utilized for determining a wireless packet communication, Quality of Service level by decoding a connection number field of the compressed IP packet header. Packets carrying different connection numbers can be mapped to different Quality of Service planes. For example, when a non-active TCP connection becomes active, the classification application detects and identifies the connection by reading the connection number field of a compressed TCP/IP header in a packet of the application. The classification application applies the appropriate Quality of Service level as determined from a user database and a list of available Quality of Service levels. If the connection has no table entry, the TCP/IP application is identified based on comparison to a pre-loaded table of port numbers and a new entry ID is created in the connection number table.
The above as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.